Ravilious in Pictures: Sussex and the Downs

Illustration artwork by Ravilious in pictures, grey walled room, wooden floor, wooden stool, dark pink curtains, white open door with view of grassed landscape, wooden framed window with view of grassed landscape, daylight casting shadows

‘Ravilious in Pictures: Sussex and the Downs’. Front cover

(Image credit: James Russell.)

Yet another sumptuous offering from the Mainstone Press, the small Norwich outfit doing sterling work in preserving and representing unfamiliar gems of 20th-century British art.

Eric Ravilious was one of the great craftsmen of the inter-war art scene, an illustrator, engraver and painter whose life was cut tragically short by the Second World War. As well as setting the aesthetic tone for the stripped back, pastel-coloured 50s, Ravilious's imagery accompanied the cutting edge graphics of the day, including posters for London Transport and designs for Wedgwood.

Sussex and the Downs contains reproductions of 24 of the artist's landscape watercolours, abstracted to a point of matchless simplicity and rendered in deeply sympathetic tones.

Illustration artwork by &lsquo;Ravilious in Pictures, daytime, grass, two wooden chairs and table set with food on plates, teapot , jug and cups, grey parasol, stone brick wall, grass landscape and trees, cloudy blue sky — ‘Ravilious in Pictures: Sussex and the Downs’ by James Russell. Tea at Furlongs

Illustration artwork by &lsquo;Ravilious in Pictures, wooden frame train compartment, grey, blue dot and diamond design seating, number 3 and 990 displayed on door, wooden framed windows with view of landscape, green grass and hills, large white Westbury horse painted on hillside, blue sky — ‘Ravilious in Pictures: Sussex and the Downs’ by James Russell. Train Landscape

Illustration artwork by &lsquo;Ravilious in Pictures, view of landscape, green grass and hills, close up of large white Westbury horse painted on hillside, blue cloudy sky, steam train puffing smoke in the distance — ‘Ravilious in Pictures: Sussex and the Downs’. Westbury Horse

Illustration by &lsquo;Ravilious in Picture, Wiltshire landscape, black telephone poles in a line at the side of a grey road, ploughed land, black and white directions sign, hills, trees, red van, green hedges, grey cloudy sky — ‘Ravilious in Pictures: Sussex and the Downs’. Wiltshire Landscape

Jonathan Bell has written for Wallpaper* magazine since 1999, covering everything from architecture and transport design to books, tech and graphic design. He is now the magazine’s Transport and Technology Editor. Jonathan has written and edited 15 books, including Concept Car Design, 21st Century House, and The New Modern House. He is also the host of Wallpaper’s first podcast.